Italian Potato Salad

Potato salad – such a classic side dish to serve at picnics yet there are so many ways you can dress it up. I’m guessing you are familiar with mayonnaise-based potato salads and even Amish-based potato salads with mustard, but what if I told you one of the best ways to make it involves olive oil? For the past few years now, Dad makes his Italian Potato Salad for cook outs, a recipe he learned from his mom and then passed it along to me. Today I’m teaming up with Sunday Supper and Idaho Potato Commission to bring you a new potato salad possibility for your picnics and cook outs with my take on Italian Potato Salad.

I made my potato salad slightly different than my dad. First, I added garlic and parsley pastes, which you can find both in your store’s produce section by the fresh herbs. Using pastes distributes the flavors more evenly in the dressing; however, you can use minced garlic and chopped parsley if you don’t have the pastes. Or you can make your own pastes.

Since you’re using olive oil as a dressing rather than a cooking oil, you want to use the best quality you can afford. I highly recommend not using vegetable oil as a substitute. In fact, I’d say don’t substitute the olive oil at all, but if you must, make sure you use a flavored oil.

Now it wouldn’t be a potato salad without talking about the star of the dish – the potatoes! The potatoes I used are russet potatoes, straight from Idaho Potato Commission. Last summer, I won 30 pounds of freshly dug-up potatoes from their farm and made some killer recipes with them, such as my Baked Potato Soup and Homemade Salt and Vinegar Chips. Now along with Idaho Potato Commission’s help, Sunday Supper is giving you new potato salad ideas for your picnic table this summer. For more potato recipes, please visit Idaho Potato Commission’s website and check them out on social media: Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram

If you are a blogger who wants to attend the Food and Wine Conference in July, you’re in luck! Idaho Potato Commission is sponsoring a recipe contest where you can win tickets (and more!) to the conference. For more information, visit the recipe contest page.

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I love the idea of using the garlic paste to evenly distribute the flavor. So smart, because that’s one of the reasons I’ve shied away from using garlic in potato salad – some bites would be really garlicky, and others would have none of that flavor at all. Problem solved!

Wow! I just made potato salad this weekend. I wished I had seen this recipe. where I took it would have been an excellent place and group of people to appreciate something new and different. I am actually anxious to see how this tastes!